Nomads and Barbarians

Beyond the borders of the great early empires—the Roman Empire (27
B.C.E.
–476
C.E.
), the Byzantine Empire (476–1453
C.E.
), and early empires in India and China—lived bands of people whose
level of civilization lagged well behind that of the powerful empires.
Within the borders of empires were farmers, traders, institutions of
learning, government, laws, and order; outside the borders of empires, at
least according to those within, were "barbarians," crude
people who lived without order or law. Barbarians, of course, is a
negative term often implying ignorance and heathenism, but it was widely
used by civilized people in Rome and China to describe outsiders. Today
outsiders are called "nomads," which describes the lifestyle
of those once known as barbarians. Nomads organized themselves in small
bands, not larger cities; they hunted and gathered their food rather than
farmed; they roamed the land in search of resources instead of making
permanent settlements. And, in the case of some of the different groups of
nomads—the Celts, Huns, Vandals, Goths, and Franks—they
learned to fight and plunder in order to survive. These groups populated
the vast unsettled continents of Europe and central Asia from several
thousand years
B.C.E.
, up until they were absorbed into civilized Europe in the Middle Ages (c.
500–c. 1500
C.E.
).

Historians do not know a great deal about the life and culture of the
various barbarian peoples of Europe. These people did not
have a written language, so they left no literary record. (Some, such as
the Celts, did have a strong oral tradition, and through this storytelling
from generation to generation, their epics survived and were eventually
recorded.) Because they were constantly on the move, these nomadic groups
left no large cities or settlements. Few of the physical remnants of their
culture have survived, with the exception of some widely scattered pieces
of pottery, metal belt buckles, and bones. The vast majority of what is
known of these people was recorded by early historians from Rome, the
Byzantine Empire, and China. The Romans, Byzantines, and Chinese hated and
feared the barbarians, who were fierce fighters, but they could not help
but admire their military success.

The first inhabitants of western and central Europe were known as the
Celts (pronounced Kelts). The Celts were the most organized and civilized
of the groups encountered by the Romans. They had a complex religion that
was the center of their culture and a social organization that was headed
by kings and nobles. They were skilled in ironworking, creating swords and
armor for battles. Their society first flourished around 700
B.C.E.
and reached its peak around 500
B.C.E.
Celts resisted Roman rule when the Romans first began to move into the
area known as Gaul (present-day France) in the first century
B.C.E.
, but later they adopted the Catholic religion which was prevalent
throughout Rome.

Barbarian attacks and the collapse of the Roman Empire

By the second century
C.E.
Rome had extended its rule across much of present-day Europe, including
Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, and the Baltic
States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). But their control of this area
was soon challenged by the invasion of barbarian tribes from the north
and the east. The first of the barbarian tribes to launch attacks on the
Roman Empire were the Visigoths, or western Goths, who attacked in
present-day Turkey from the north in the fourth century
C.E.
(The Goths were loosely organized Germanic tribes; most of what is
known about them comes from their battles with the Romans.) Bands of
Visigoth warriors, first led by King Alaric I (c. 370-410
C.E.
), moved from east to west across the empire, capturing Rome in 410 and
eventually moving into Spain and then France. Another

Map of Western Europe showing movements of various tribes across
the continent around 500
C.E.
Reproduced by permission of the
.

group, the Ostrogoths, or eastern Goths, followed with a series of
attacks in Italy. These groups and others, like the Vandals, Sueves, and
Alans, eventually formed crude settlements.

The long string of attacks in the fourth century greatly disrupted Roman
rule, but worse was yet to come. Beginning in about 440, a new group of
barbarians from the east began to attack both Romans and other
now-settled barbarians. This most feared and despised of all the
invading groups were known as the Huns. The Roman historian Ammianus (c.
330–395
C.E.
), quoted in E. A. Thompson's
The Huns,
wrote that the Huns were "so prodigiously ugly and bent that
they might be taken for two-legged animals or the figures crudely carved
from stumps." Their "terrifying appearance," wrote
Jordanes, another historian quoted by Thompson, "inspired fear
because of its swarthiness, and they had … a sort of shapeless
lump, not a head." Riding on powerful horses and carrying heavy
war axes, these fierce and utterly fearless Huns scattered Roman and
barbarian forces alike. Under their most powerful leader, Attila (c.
406–453), they established control over large parts of the
northern Roman Empire. Their attacks and their continued warfare with
the Visigoths, Franks, Celts, and other groups eventually contributed to
the collapse of the Roman Empire in 476.

The origins and culture of the Barbarians

We know little about the life of the barbarians before they knocked down
the doors of civilization. Some scholars have speculated that the Huns
and the Goths originated in Asia and were related to the Mongols who
caused so much trouble for the early Chinese (and were known as the
Moguls in India). They believe that these groups had overhunted their
traditional hunting grounds and first began to travel east in search of
food. When they encountered the wealthy and civilized Roman settlements,
they quickly recognized
that these were a source of both food and wealth like they had never
known.

It is likely that the barbarians generally organized themselves in small
tribes. They kept their groups small so that they could travel quickly
in search of food, and they built crude temporary housing to suit their
needs. The men in these tribes engaged in hunting for food and fighting
other tribes to gain control of hunting grounds. They became superior
warriors. Men from various tribes did band together to fight the Romans,
but they were not a well-organized and equipped army.

As these barbarian tribes crossed Europe, they found a climate and
geography that allowed them to give up their nomadic ways. They no
longer needed to travel constantly to find food, and they learned
agriculture from those who already lived in the area. Following the
collapse of the Roman Empire in 476, barbarians settled into permanent
communities. Celts, Angles, and Saxons settled in what would become
Great Britain; Franks settled in Germany and France; Visigoths settled
in Spain; and other groups scattered in places throughout Europe. As the
Middle Ages began, Europe was influenced by a mix of Roman and barbarian
customs.